My son’s taking a college photography class, and he came home with an assignment to shoot some portraits. Of course, I wanted to know a bit about the assignment, so I asked a few questions — how did they explain “portraits”, did they talk about focal lengths, lighting, and so on. It turns out they’d […]
Category: Blog
Not so very long ago
I don’t “set up” a whole lot of shots, but I spent a few minutes on this one, and I thought I’d take the time to write up the lighting setup. The composition of the shot is pretty simple. I wanted the fireplace to figure prominently in the shot, and the counter where the props are located […]
StepShot review
Last week, I tried sharing my most recent post as a quick how-to example for someone who was trying to accomplish this same effect in Photoshop Elements, and my tutorial was found somewhat lacking. I’ve been meaning to take a crack at improving the article, and I believe I’ve now got another great excuse to […]
Adding textures in Photoshop
I’ve seen some nice examples of this technique, now, and I’ve been meaning to try this for a while. You can see what I’m talking about here — there’s a texture added to the photo here, helping to give a little interest to a really simple subject. In some cases, this can end up looking […]
Tripod shopping 101
For some people, money is no object when buying photography equipment. If you’re one of those people, you can stop reading now — this column isn’t for you. If you’re still here, you’ve probably had to make some decisions as you’ve spent your hard-earned money on photography. You’ve probably researched camera systems and lenses. After […]
Shoot a Silhouette
Silhouette photos can be a great way to handle tough lighting situations. Whenever you’re shooting into a light source, it’s tough to expose a subject properly without blowing out the background. You can try an HDR photo or some fill light, or you can just stop fighting the lighting and shoot your subject in silhlouette. […]
Just buy it.
It’s not uncommon to see someone who’s looking for a cheap (or free) alternative to Adobe Lightroom, and I saw another one of these threads this morning. I’m normally all about trying out cheaper alternatives, but not in this case. I started years ago with Paint.net (free) and some old image editor I can’t remember […]
Double Wasp
From its huge prop to its signature gullwing stance, the story of the F4U Corsair is the story of a plane designed around an engine. When originally designed in 1938, the Vought engineers were convinced that Pratt & Whitney’s brand-new R-2800 Double Wasp engine (rated at 2,000 HP) was the key to getting the sort of […]
Catch some Lightning
I was lucky enough to catch some great summer storms rolling through central Ohio last week, and I snagged a couple fairly decent lightning photos. Although it’s not as difficult as you might imagine to get photos like this, there’s definitely a knack to it, and I’ve gone through a lot of really bad photos before getting […]
Cleared to taxi
No matter how many times I hear a WW-II warbird start and throttle up, it never fails to send a shiver up my spine, and P-51’s are right up at the top of the list. When I got to the warbirds area, there were a handful of Mustangs getting set for a quick jump, and […]